


ad astra per aspera

by Edie_Rone



Category: The X-Files
Genre: 50 States of Us, F/M, MSR, dorm room sex lol, established MSR, it's sweet and fluffy but also there's some sex, post-reconciliation but pre-Jackson, revival era, rock chalk jayhawk, sweet fluffy sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 03:24:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20521157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edie_Rone/pseuds/Edie_Rone
Summary: Kansas again, after all this time.





	ad astra per aspera

Kansas again, after all this time. 

But instead of sweltering summer and suffocating sexual tension in a one-motel burg, it’s a weakly-lit January noonday in a bustling college town, with frost in the air and that new-semester feel to things. KU students, looking like just-hatched chicks, crisscross the campus. Most of them are buzzing with the news of the arrests last night — their arrests, specifically, which makes the two of them either heroes or villains, depending on who you ask. 

Scully and Mulder had made the discovery that the malevolent ghosts plaguing Allen Fieldhouse since September were the work of a trio of art and physics majors: seniors who’d planned the hoax for their entire undergraduate careers, and who probably would’ve gotten away with it if they hadn’t accidentally caused the kind of damage that drew the Feds’ attention — and with it, the two most experienced ghost-hunters in all of law enforcement. 

The kids weren’t going to do serious time, though, and the FBI’s finest had already heard that they’d be allowed to graduate quietly next year — if the freshly-minted campus celebrities even wanted to stick around, after sifting through job offers from what seemed like half of Hollywood and even (in the case of the young woman who’d been the mastermind) the Bureau itself. 

The grateful KU president had invited them to be his guests, enjoy Lawrence and take in the evening’s entertainment, the hottest ticket in Kansas and its neighboring states: the Jayhawks (hopefully) mowing down Mizzou. Nowadays, they can decide to stay over another night if they like, not take the first and shittiest flight they can find back to DC; life on the road isn’t so bad if it’s freely chosen, and if it’s together in love.

And so they find themselves at leisure, after a few hours’ worth of the usual wrap-up work, to wander around like civilians — unarmed, sans badges, and off the clock till morning. 

Walking hand in hand, lost in thought, stirred by long memory, they’re quiet; neither has ties to this university, but something about the place strikes deep chords in them — partly nostalgia for their own long-ago college days, and partly because of their son, who should by rights be making school visits this spring. It’s a persistent ache, but at times like these, not altogether unpleasant, harmonizing with what they’ve come to see as their own personal kintsugi: the flaws, cracks, and repairs of themselves and their relationship aren’t hidden anymore, but rather illuminated; they’re part of the beauty of it. 

So thinking, they turn to each other and see the same look, realizing that once again, their minds are in similar places; it makes them smile, then laugh, crow’s feet, silver-flecked hair, and all. 

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs into her hair, pulling her close. 

“So are you,” she smiles, burrowing against him, one ear directly over his steady, loyal heart. He laughs, but his arms tighten around her, and she knows she’s surprised him again. 

She thinks of the gleeful awe in his eyes when they were first escorted out onto the court last Sunday; they were there to investigate a crime, but she could tell that in that moment, he felt like the kids from _Hoosiers_ — stepping foot on hallowed ground, unable to believe his own luck. God, how she’d loved him in that moment, her foolish and wonderful man. 

“Take me to bed,” she says quietly, for his ears alone. 

“Thought you’d never come across,” he teases, and oh, that gravelly voice he can’t help using when he knows he’s about to get laid … she blushes a little at the abruptness of the way he turns her back in the direction they’d come; their accommodations, chosen to keep them as close to the investigation as possible, are in Oliver Hall. 

In the stairway up to the third floor, she feels every bit the virginal freshman she’d been once upon a time, pretending that the boy she’s sneaking into her dorm is just a study date. He keeps his hand on her lower back, pulls her to him in the stairwell for a kiss that gets interrupted by a group of students thundering down from the fourth floor. 

Giggling like horny teenagers, they manage to get to their room without further incident. Now, it’s just logistics: She looks at the standard-issue twin beds, and wonders if it would help if they pushed them together — but one glance at Mulder’s face tells her he’s fully into this dorm-sex scenario as is. 

“We’ve done it in tighter spaces than this,” he says, with a positively lecherous grin. 

“Did you grab some condoms from the basket outside the RA’s door?” 

“Uh huh, all the Xtra-large ones,” he leers, miming ripping open a packet and tossing the wrapper over his shoulder. She laughs out loud, falling against him, and tells him she’s so fucking glad they don’t have to deal with that stuff anymore. “Bein’ old rules,” he agrees, with his hand up her shirt and his tongue in her ear. 

They don’t say a lot after that — it’s too much fun to yank off clothes with such abandon, to stroke and taste and touch in such enforced proximity; the challenge of not falling off the narrow mattress, not getting elbowed in the throat or pinned down by the other’s weight on their own hair, adds a degree of difficulty that heats things up all the more. To his credit, Mulder lasts longer than most college men would — but the furtive haste of it turns her on in ways she’s not about to examine, and thanks to his talented hands, she ends up coming twice. 

Afterward, spooned up together, she whispers against the warm skin of his back, “Do you remember—”

“Yeah,” he interrupts, cradling her hand to his chest with infinite tenderness. “I wanted you then, too. Laid awake all night wishing I could touch you.” 

“Me too.” 

“Why didn’t we?”

“Oh, Mulder,” she sighs, pleasantly nostalgic and rueful toward her younger self. “So many reasons, and they seemed so important at the time …”

“I guess so,” he muses softly. “I’m glad you stuck around long enough for me to get my head out of my ass, though.” 

“Me too,” she says, smiling in the near-dark; it isn’t long till sleep takes them both. 

Some time later, she wakes to see Mulder at the window, wrapped in the duvet from the other bed. He turns and beckons her over; she comes to stand with him, her back against his bare chest and the blanket around them both. 

“It’s snowing,” he says unnecessarily; fat flakes are drifting down, dusting the campus and all the people streaming toward Allen Fieldhouse. In the winter’s early dark, the effect is magical. 

“I love Kansas,” she sighs. His soft laugh tickles her ear. 

“Me too, baby. Me too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> My entry to the 50 States of Us fic challenge. Rock Chalk!


End file.
